Pak-Afghan crisis needs regional solution

Washington, Feb.2 (ANI): Retired Marine General James Jones has told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee here that the deteriorating situation in Pakistan, coupled with the insurgency in Afghanistan, have together created a regional problem, and therefore, a regional solution is required. Former Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering told the senators, We now have to deal with a reconstituted Taliban and Al Qaeda, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and a runaway opium economy and severe poverty faced by most Afghans. Pickering, however, ruled out the possibility of American forces moving into Pakistani territory. I think that a totally loony idea is to put US forces into the frontier areas of Pakistan. If the Pakistanis themselves cannot do it, with their knowledge, with their colourable capability to operate in those areas, at least now, how are Americans going to get over this particular difficult problem? he asked. The Daily Times quoted former US envoy Richard Holbrooke told the committee that the problem in the Pak-Afghan border area is one of the toughest on earth and there was no easy solution. (ANI)